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Factories threaten China's major rivers

China's major waterways are threatened with severe pollution because of poor planning and a lack of waste treatment facilities, a top environmental official said in the state media yesterday.

A review of 127 major chemical and petrochemical projects found many were located too close to major bodies of water, Xinhua news agency cited Pan Yue (潘岳), deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Agency, as saying.

"These environmental risks cannot be solved within a short time, as the cost of relocation of the projects is too high," he said.

The inspections of the chemical projects, prompted by an explosion last November at a chemical plant that released tonnes of toxic chemicals in the Songhua River in northeastern China, found 20 with serious environmental safety problems, Pan said.

The projects included oil refining, ethylene and methanol factories involving 60.6 billion yuan (US$7.6 billion) in investments. Eleven were along the Yangtze River, one on the Yellow River and two at Daya Bay near Hong Kong.

The government has ordered those plants to take immediate action to fix the problems, and allocated 1.62 billion yuan to fund improvements, the report said.

The environmental agency has suspended approval of 44 projects with a total planned investment of 149.5 billion yuan because of their locations.

The environmental agency has repeatedly seen its attempts to close down or stop construction of projects accused of violating environmental safeguards overridden or ignored.
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